Dhaka deports him after rejecting asylum plea
The CBI Thursday put Ulfa founder member Anup Chetia, deported by Bangladesh a day earlier, under arrest over a murder case registered in 1998. Sources said Chetia’s arrest is likely to speed up the ongoing peace process with the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom.
The CBI, in a statement issued in Delhi Thursday, said Chetia, whose real name is Golap Baruah, was put under arrest over a murder case that was handed over to the CBI by the Assam government in 1988. “He was produced before the competent court in Delhi, which sent him to six days’ transit remand to the CBI,” an agency source said.
The CBI is probing the murder of former Golaghat councillor Deboksi Dhar Chaudhury, who was killed by Ulfa cadres on August 29, 1986. Chetia is alleged to be involved in the criminal conspiracy. Chetia, 48, was arrested in Bangladesh in 1997 and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for carrying foreign currency and a satellite phone. After his sentence ended, India had asked for his deportation, but it was stalled after he petitioned the high court in Bangladesh seeking political asylum. The court had directed that Chetia be kept in safe custody till his petition was decided upon.
The confirmation of Mr Chetia’s release came when Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said in Dhaka that the government had “released” the top Ulfa leader on completion of his detention in Bangladesh. He also told reporters that Border Guard Bangladesh members had also handed over Chetia’s two prison mates — Babul Sharma and Shakti Prashad — arrested along with him, to the Border Security Force. “I am going back willingly and consciously and in good health,” the minister quoted Chetia as saying.
Sources said a team of CBI officials landed in Dhaka on Sunday and held discussions with security officials there. The Indian high commission was also closely involved in the negotiations. Reports from Dhaka claimed that Chetia, who was in the Mohammadpur area of Dhaka before his arrest on December 21, 1997, was handed over to a CBI team follwing the personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and with the active involvement of India’s national security adviser Ajit Doval.
Security sources pointed out that Chetia’s release became possible after Bangladesh had rejected his application for political asylum. Chetia was flown to Delhi from Dhaka by the CBI in a special BSF aircraft Wednesday. Chetia had sought political asylum in Bangladesh thrice — in 2005, 2008 and 2011 — after the Bangladesh police arrested him in December 1997 and was subsequently sentenced to seven years in jail by two courts for cross-border intrusion, carrying fake passports and illegally keeping foreign currencies.
